Among those that had a risk score recorded after it was introduced in 2012, just over a third (35%) of high-risk patients were prescribed statins.

The researchers said most patients who had a risk score calculated were not offered a statin in the subsequent two months, even those deemed to be high-risk.

They wrote: “This study confirms that there is potential under-treatment of patients at high risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and, although only a small proportion of low-risk patients are initiated on statins, low-risk patients represent a significant proportion of all statin initiations.”

Nice lowered the threshold for eligible patients for CVD prevention therapy with statins in 2014. But this did “not result in the massive increase in statin initiations that was anticipated,” they added.